1 Gigawatt Solar Power Plant (Plus Factory) Planned For Jordan

Now here we go! Renewable Energy World is reporting an announcement by the Al-Husseini Group and Amelio Solar that they will be partnering to build a gigawatt scale solar PV power plant and a thin-film solar PV manufacturing facility in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. (Couldn’t resist writing the full name of the country most readers just know as Jordan.)

Here are the details on the power plant and the solar factory:200 MW Factory to Build Panels for Power PlantThe plan is over the next three years to build the 200 MW thin-film solar PV factory (producing amorphous silicon, CIGS and related hybrid PV modules), with 22 MW being completed by the end of 2009. The output of this factory will then be used to build a 1 GW solar power plant which will reach full capacity by 2017. The factory will also produce solar modules for use in other Amelio Solar projects around the world, as well as for sale in the open market.

Though the largest current solar power plants (photovoltaic or thermal) are far, far smaller than gigawatt scale, or even past half a gigawatt, in the past six months there have been a number of project announcements that are pushing the scale of commercial solar power plants equal to that of fossil fuel power plants.

Given the state of the global economy, some of these may get scaled back, delayed or perhaps even cancelled, obviously nothing is written in stone at this point... Nevertheless, when combined with decentralized rooftop solar power generation, the potential of solar power is increasingly becoming more clear.